101 in 1001: Goal 99

Goal 99: Participate in Operation Christmas Child

This was our first time to participate in Operation Christmas Child sponsored by Samaritan's Purse.  I'm sure it will become a Christmas tradition for our family because the boys and I had so much fun packing our boxes.

I explained to Jack and Will that we were packing boxes for little boys in another part of the world whose families were too poor to buy Christmas presents.  We wanted to make sure that every child had a present to open on Jesus's birthday.  And when the Operation Christmas Child workers delivered the presents to the children, they would have a chance to tell the boys how much Jesus loves them.

All three of us enjoyed shopping for fun stuff to include in our boxes.  "Do you think he would like this?  Oh, I know he needs this!"  The OCC brochure did give some guidelines about things to include and things that were prohibited, and we followed their suggestions.

In each box, we included combs, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a washcloth and soaps, a coloring book and crayons, Go Fish and Old Maid cards, toy cars, Legos, a fishing game, a watch, a ball, a flashlight and extra batteries, and candy.  What we found was that there wasn't enough room in the box for everything that we wanted to send.  The adage "it is more fun to give than to receive" was very real for Jack and Will (and me, too!) during Operation Christmas Child.

We made our shipping donation online so that we could print out a tracking label.  Once the presents were delivered, Samaritan's Purse would email me to let us know which country received our boxes.  Jack is really into geography and current events, so I knew that he would like to know where our boxes ended up and we could do a little research about the country.  **After Christmas, I received an email that our boxes arrived safely in Lebanon.**

 

I originally picked up our OCC boxes at a local Chick-fil-A, but picked them up the day before they were due to be returned.  I knew there was no way I would be able to have them back the next day, but the manager assured me that if I returned the boxes to the restaurant, then Chick-fil-A would make sure they got to the distribution center.  By the time we had shopped and packed the boxes, the boys and I had so much personally invested in them, that I wanted to deliver them to the distribution center myself.  But I tell you about my conversation with the manager as just another example of what a wonderful Christian business Chick-fil-A is, so please "Eat Mor Chikin!"

On December 6th, while the boys were in school, I drove our boxes out to the regional distribution center located here.  I don't know what I was expecting to see or even if I really knew what to expect, but I walked through the warehouse doors to drop off our 2 boxes and was floored to see the magnitude of the Operation Christmas Child distribution facilities!  It was a huge warehouse filled with hundreds of boxes waiting to be sorted and checked as well as thousands of packed cartons ready to be shipped.  To say that I was overwhelmed is an understatement.

When I first walked in, a school group was unloading box after box collected from their schoolmates.  They had a school bus full of boxes.

I handed our boxes to a worker and was assured that I could walk around the warehouse.  I was told that as of December 5th, our distribution center had shipped over 850,000 boxes overseas; by the end of the season, they projected that over 1.2 million boxes would go out.  1.2 MILLION!  1.2 MILLION children will get the chance to hear about the love of Jesus from this distribution center alone.

There were 14 stations where volunteers were sorting through the boxes and getting them ready to load into shipping cartons. 

The prayer room had a station for each country that would receive boxes from our distribution center.

 The purpose of the prayer room

 I tried to take a picture of each country's station, knowing that this would definitely interest Jack.  And then my camera battery died, of course.  But I did get a picture of "undisclosed country."  Jack was confused about what undisclosed country meant, thinking it meant that OCC had no idea where these boxes ended up.  We assured Jack that OCC knew which country this was but because those citizens could be killed for being Christians, it was for the protection of the people receiving the gifts that the country's name remained confidential.  This led to a discussion about religious freedom vs religious persecution, and a reminder that we need to pray daily for the people of "undisclosed country."

While I was there, the volunteers started their day with a morning prayer.  The minister leading the prayer asked all the volunteers to hold a shoe box and while we were praying to pray specifically for that shoe box's child and their family.  It was a powerful moment to know that these children were being prayed over by complete strangers, and that the Lord would not let these prayers go unanswered.   I was blessed to be there.

Operation Christmas Child was one of my favorite parts of Christmas 2011.  We will participate again in 2012, and next time I am going to take Jack and Will with me to the distribution center.  This is something they need to witness with their own eyes.

And the King will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Matthew 25:40